There are some visible seams around where the DLC was welded in, however – it’s still very noticeable that the two permanent companions that were added, Kasumi and Zaeed, are less conversational than the rest of the team once they’re on your ship. Having a bunch of stuff unceremoniously dropped into my inventory because I bought something never felt good, and having to use credits to buy them at in-game stores instead is literally a small price to pay for better immersion. Outside of that, all of the DLC is now integrated into the campaign in a way that’s much smoother.
(It’s quite annoying, though, that the Series X’s Quick Resume is not supported, so my kid’s obsession with New Super Lucky’s Tale meant I had to go through the start screen every time.)
The same powerful photo mode is available throughout all three games in the trilogy too, and Mass Effect 2 is a great way to take advantage of it, being a significantly better-looking game than the original. Playing on Xbox Series X, it ran flawlessly at 60fps (my TV’s not quite capable of 4K/120Hz, but EA says Mass Effect is), with the biggest visual problems I saw amounting to some small animation glitches.
Granted, the facial animations don’t compare to the motion-captured performances we see in games like The Last of Us Part 2 or Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but they’re a step up from the first game and good enough to not distract from what’s happening on screen. The improvements in the Legendary Edition are largely graphical – the 4K textures are almost as sharp as a modern game, though I spotted things like guns or random props that looked a little blurry here and there. Of course, far more importantly, Mass Effect 2’s story and characters are top-notch and memorable, building on BioWare’s already amazingly well constructed science fiction universe and culminating in what is – without hyperbole – one of the all-time best finales in gaming history. Its gunplay may not be the best of its kind, but it’s certainly fun enough to keep battles interesting throughout the length of the campaign. Where the first game can still look and feel a bit janky, the second now plays like a fully modern third-person, cover-based shooter that, thanks to its 4K upgrade, looks almost good enough to have been released for the first time in 2020 rather than 2010. Going directly from the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 is a dramatic change.
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